The Pixels movie featuring several 80s gaming icons like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man is live in theaters this Friday, but according to a recent interview with the movie’s director Christ Columbus, Donkey Kong almost didn’t make it because Nintendo was worried about the source material being respected.

I was excited because the script had a Centipede sequence and a Pac-Man sequence, but what the first draft of the script did not have was Donkey Kong. After months and months of meeting with the board of Nintendo they agreed that we were going to treat Donkey Kong with respect and the proper gameplay, which was very important, and bringing Donkey Kong into the film was a slam-dunk for us.

Nintendo has been notoriously shy about letting other entities use its intellectual property, but the company has opened up in the past few years. Both Donkey Kong and Bowser are featuring in Activision’s Skylanders Superchargers and Bowser’s big screen debut happened in 2013’s Wreck-It Ralph.